The Latest: Sessions’ predecessor slams sentencing policy

FILE - In this Oct. 15, 2015 file photo, a guard tower looms over a federal prison complex which houses a Supermax facility outside Florence, in southern Colorado. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has directed the nation’s federal prosecutors to pursue the most serious charges possible against the vast majority of suspects, a reversal of Obama-era policies that is sure to send more people to prison and for far longer terms. The move, announced in a policy memo sent to U.S. attorneys late on May 10, has been expected from Sessions. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley,File)

Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ predecessor says his rollback of Obama-era charging and sentencing policies is “dumb on crime.”

Eric Holder says Sessions is ignoring bipartisan support for sentencing changes in telling the nation’s federal prosecutors to charge the most serious crimes against most suspects. The change would trigger longer prison sentences.

He says Sessions’ policy is “an ideologically motivated, cookie-cutter approach that has only been proven to generate unfairly long sentences.”

Holder says the Sessions memo will spend money on incarceration rather than more pressing needs.

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11 a.m.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions says his directive that prosecutors should charge suspects with the most serious crimes is a “key part of President Trump’s promise to keep America safe.”

Sessions on Friday explained his new memo to prosecutors, saying a tougher approach is necessary for public safety. He cited the country’s opioid addiction and rising murder rates in cities such as Chicago and Memphis, Tennessee.

The policy is an undoing of Obama-era policies that aimed to ease federal prison overcrowding and show lenience to lower-level, nonviolent drug offenders. Critics say the Sessions approach is a return to failed drug war policies that disproportionately hurt minority communities.

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10:15 a.m.

The ACLU says Attorney General Jeff Sessions is “repeating a failed experiment” by encouraging prosecutors to pursue tougher charges against most suspects.

Udi Ofer, director of the organization’s Campaign for Smart Justice, says it sounds a lot like a throwback to the war on drugs. He says that effort in the 1970s and ’80s “devastated the lives and rights of millions of Americans” and disproportionately hurt minorities. He says Sessions risks repeating “a vicious cycle of incarceration” at a time when crime rates are low.

Sessions’ memo to U.S. attorneys is an undoing of Obama-era policies that aimed to ease federal prison overcrowding and show lenience to nonviolent, lower-level drug offenders. Sessions says the opioid scourge shows the need to return to tougher tactics.

Ofer says the policy is “draconian.”

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9:25 a.m.

Some prosecutors are praising Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ new policy urging them to charge the most serious crimes against suspects.

The move has been criticized by defense attorneys and advocates as likely to crowd federal prisons and subject lower-level drug offenders to long mandatory minimum sentences they see as unfairly harsh.

But the head of the National Association of Assistant United States Attorneys says the new guidance will make the public safer.

Lawrence Leiser says the policy will “restore the tools that Congress intended” federal prosecutors to use to punish drug traffickers and dismantle gangs.

He says the policy is simply an application of sentencing laws approved by Congress.

The policy undoes Obama-era guidance that Sessions says sidestepped federal law by allowing prosecutors to avoid charging some people with the most serious charges.

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9:20 a.m.

The head of a defense attorneys organization says Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ directive that prosecutors pursue tougher charges against suspects has stripped them of their ability to seek justice.

Barry Pollack, of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, says the new policy will “yield unfair results” and marks a return to the failed policies of past administrations.

Sessions’ memo released Friday reverses Obama-era policies that aimed to show lenience to lower level drug offenders and ease federal prison overcrowding. Prosecutors are to seek the most serious charges, which are likely to send more people to prison for longer terms.

Pollack says Sessions’ policy sounds a lot like those of the drug war that “caused mass incarceration, devastated families and communities and failed to make us any safer.”

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6:00 a.m.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is telling the nation’s federal prosecutors to pursue the most serious charges possible against most suspects. That is sure to send more people to prison and for much longer terms by triggering mandatory minimum sentences.

Sessions announced the move in a policy memo sent to U.S. attorneys. It’s long been expected from the former prosecutor who has made fighting violent crime the Justice Department’s priority.